mahler madness
Introduction
I was raised in a sports household, specifically nfl football and college basketball. I have always held these sweet weeks of college basektball in reverence, a sort of holiday, it accommpaines the blooming spring so well. I make a groupchat with friends, I make my brackets, I am glued to the screen (or, during last lent, the radio on my walkman) and my emotional stock is put into the performance of 10 sweaty college kids being watched by millions. It's beautiful, really. I will always love it.
I was not raised in a classical household. my dad is friends with a classically trained musician, a man who's favorite piece of art is the art of the fugue (which I like more than goldberg variations, but have heard significantly less times). We own a bunch of classical cds but it's mostly those really terrible "best of" compilations and works by the same composer but sparsley related. My favorite premodern classical music is either Chopin nocturnes or the beethoven sonatas, and the only stuff I have given a chance to has been of the impressionistic variety. I read some of "The Rest is Noise" alongside an interest in beethovens symphonic work, I have been trying to acquire a more nuanced and holistic opinion of classical music as a discipline over time.
My only knowledge of mahler is an errant song on a playlist by 1975 frontman Matty Healy and the negative opinion held by Frasier. The rest is noise painted him (in the few pages I read) as one of the last major composers of the romantic moment before the 20th century brought things in a different direction. What direction? I don't know, I read like 20 pages. It's a long book and I have the attention span of a small bird. This march madness, I am going to listen to all of the mahler compositions, give some thoughts, create a bracket to determine my favorite, and probably also give some insight into my picks for march madness and my opinions on the tournament at large. Why? i dont know, cause I can. A little game alongside music makes it more enticing as we all know. So stay tuned for an update every 2-4 days probably.
Brackets
I am listening to a playlist I downloaded from deezer with every version. Every version is conducted by Simon Rattle and accompanied by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I'll download the covers of the right albums, but Im picking the prettiest ones for the list.
let the madness begin!
Symphony No. 2
Composed: 1888–1894
Premiered: dec 13 1895 in Berlin
march fifteenth - seventeenth
that's right, it took me three days to finish symphony number two. What are you going to do about it?
"Mit Aufschwung Aber Nicht Eilen" (with impetus but not rushing) was so stunning this morning. I did not grasp this one at all (probably because I was more focused on driving than listening, admittedly) but it is so vast in its scope and so dense in instrumentation. The choral movements at the end were my favorite part in between the sections I was in the car with others or staring blankly at the road in reflection.
ESPN is doing this thing where they add a terribly gaudy and only somewhat helpful side and bottom bar going through every march madness game on loop, men and womens. Been seeing it all day today and yesterday. The arizona arkansas game is going to be a big one, I think I am gonna have arizona winning that game and consequently the tournament, but it will be a nailbiter. I also got really into St Louis and the idea of the Billiken and I think they can go pretty far. Of course, it is all unpredictable, and we cannot forget last year and how it was practically a chalk bracket. I am manifesting MACtion to take over the tournament with miami of ohio and akron both going really far. My south quadrant is boring as booty, save for that obvious McNeese win. I love mcneese.
Symphony No. 1
Composed: 1887–1888: Leipzig
Premiered: nov 20 1889 in Budapest
march twelfth
Everyone seems to be holding on as tight as possible to make sure they have the "ultimate recording" but its truly about the same to me. Some amount of extra discerning in tastes makes the experiences of art worse, and vetting which orchestra did what and mixing qualms are among those in my mind. THAT BEING SAID! I DID downloaded a verison with the blumine movement, which i found awfully confusing until i spent some time on the Wikipedia page today. Mahler scrapped the second movement he initially had but in 1966 they found it and started recording it sometimes. I am a big fan of it, and I am a big fan of this album. In retrospect, my writings on this were related to the idea of mahler madness, so I scrapped most of it. I'm sure the words will make more sense the more time I spend getting a feel for this, though.
I was heartbroken that Miami of Ohio lost. Their 31 win streak ended, and they were a toss up for the tournament. I think they deserve to be in there because people wanted Auburn with a losing SEC record to make it over them, and I really love the mac. Of course, in retrospect, I got what I wanted: 2 mac teams. Akron looks really good as well, so maybe this was the best outcome for everyone. Truly that was about the only thing I cared about in regards to the tournament before the seeds were set, Indiana lost badly to a pretty terrible northwestern team and got booted, oh well!